big already – why not add a little number-play, some
architectural symbolism – a paean to the good old-
fashioned Year.
Imagine the listing, Ava!
For fans of the Gregorian calendar…
Anyway,
I was roaming this house’s kitchen garden –
bushiest fennel, neat rows of lettuces,
various onions on the go –
my feet were crunching on the gravel
path and
I was distracted, Ava,
you see, I have these boots, that when it rains,
make the sound of a very small and frightened
child,
only it was raining then
and they were silent,
and I was wondering, with growing
concern, whether I had, in fact,
marched previously right past a frightened
child or children in the rain,
and was remembering the time that I
was walking through a wooded park
one autumn – as quiet and crisp an autumn as I’d ever
seen –
and I was feeling blithe as hell, Ava,
I’d spied this giant pile of leaves in a clearing,
and I took a running start to kick it –
why?
Why not, Ava – who boxed your inner child and
shoved her in the attic?
And as I reached the pile and drew
my foot behind me and began to kick,
I noticed two things almost simultaneously –
that a way in front there was a man,
holding a small pink backpack, half-hiding behind a tree,
and that a way behind, a woman was
walking absent-mindedly towards said pile of leaves,
and in the instant just before my foot made
contact with the pile,
